Unchained
by LarielRomeniel
Summary: "I do believe this ship is haunted." A "Ghost"-inspired CaptainCanary fic. Tissue warning.


**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This idea has been rattling around for a little bit, and this week it just insisted on being written. I'm sorry.

Thanks to Jael for the beta. I owe you a box of tissues.

* * *

 _Oh, my love_

 _My darling_

 _I've hungered for your touch_

 _A long, lonely time_

 _And time goes by so slowly_

 _And time can do so much_

 _Are you still mine?_

\- "Unchained Melody," The Righteous Brothers/Todd Duncan

"One more thing before I go, love," John said. "I didn't notice it before because of all the spiritual interference from Mallus, but…" He paused and circled the holo table, "I do believe this ship is haunted."

Sara and her team exchanged looks across the table. "We have ghosts?" Zari asked, not quite as disbelievingly as she might have done before their encounter with the demon.

John frowned a little, looking up as if he was looking into another dimension. For all Sara knew, maybe he was. " _A_ ghost," he said finally. "Just the one spirit, and whoever it is, they'd like to have… a chat."

"With us?" Nate asked.

John shook his head. "Not you," he told Nate. " _Definitely_ not you. And not you ladies either," he went on, pointing to Zari and Amaya. "But you… you… and you." He pointed at Mick, Ray and Sara in turn. Then he pointed at Leo. "And… we're going to need some help from _you_."

"Who would be haunting us?" Zari asked.

Sara sighed, looking at her remaining original teammates. "One hell of a thief."

* * *

After he explained to Leo the role he'd be playing in this… Sara could only call it a _ritual_ …and got Leo's consent to participate, it only took John a few minutes to draw one of his chalk circles on the bridge floor. "Now I don't expect anything bad to happen, but if it does, you two should be able to safely cross the circle and pull us out," he said, pointing to Zari and Amaya. "Your amulets should protect you."

Zari looked dubious. "Really?"

"Yeah, sure," John replied blithely.

"We'll be ready," Amaya said.

"What about me?" Nate asked.

John looked thoughtful. "You can get me a drink. Actually get one for all of us." When Nate stared at him incredulously, he said, "I'm serious, mate. When we get back, we're gonna need it."

Nate nodded, and John motioned to the others who were ranged around the circle. "When I count to three, we'll all step into the circle."

"What'll we see?" Leo asked.

Jon shrugged. "Dunno, mate. Depends on your friendly ghost. _One..._ "

"I hope Snart's feeling friendly," Ray said.

" _Two…"_

"Especially after what I did to his gun."

" _Three!"_

They stepped forward into the circle… and into a place Sara remembered only too well: A grungy bar smelling of cigarettes and cheap beer, its dirty walls covered with neon signs and old posters, the Captain and Tennille playing on the jukebox. All that was missing was the biker gang.

"Charming spot," John observed drily, sauntering behind the bar to inspect the bottles on the back shelf.

"It may not look like much, but I have fond memories of this place," said an achingly familiar drawl.

Sara turned toward Leo, and swallowed to see him watching her with eyes that glowed a little more bluely than in the natural world.

This wasn't Leo anymore.

She'd known it was coming, from what John had told them, but it was still unsettling. "Leonard?" she whispered.

"Hello, Sara," he replied. "Raymond. Mick. Here you are, the last of Original Team Legends."

"You know what's been happening to our team?" Ray asked.

Leonard smirked slightly. "I've been keeping an eye on things, Raymond. I know what happened with Rip. I know Carter, Kendra and Jax went home. And... I know Stein did, too, the other way around."

His expression softened a little. "I also know all of you have some guilty feelings."

"Uh, yeah," Ray said. "Um… I broke your cold gun."

"To keep the White House from blowing up," Leonard said. "I know, Raymond, and it's okay. It went out like I did. For a good cause. But that's not why you feel guilty, is it?"

Ray swallowed and shook his head. "I'm the one who should be dead," he said, just a bit hoarsely. "That's what Rip saw in the Oculus."

"It's what the Time Bastards wanted," Leonard conceded. "But the whole point of blowing up the damned thing up was to keep them from getting what they wanted. If you'd died, Savage still would have won."

He reached out and laid a hand on Ray's shoulder. "Besides, the world needs Ray Palmer, the billionaire genius. Nobody needs a crook."

Sara's eyes filled with tears at those words as Ray choked out, "We need you, Snart… Leonard. _Mick_ needs you."

"Not so sure that's true any more, Raymond," Leonard said, turning his attention to his longtime partner. "My old friend. I know it's been rough. I hope you've forgiven me."

"You left me. Again." Mick stared at Leonard with the same broken expression Sara remembered seeing when he woke up on the Waverider to learn Leonard was dead. "I thought you had a plan. Waited for you to walk onto the bridge with that smirk and one of those damned cold puns. But you never did. All I got was hallucinations, until Thawne pulled you out of the past. And then I had to put you back there. A death sentence, you called it."

"And you told me my punishment would be to become a better man," Leonard answered. "That's just what happened. You saved me again, just like you did in juvie."

"Saved you?" Mick retorted. "You died! Still. Again."

"But you lived. And because _you_ lived, so did they," Leonard countered, waving a hand toward Sara and Ray. "Mick, you became so much more than you would have been if you hadn't followed me on this damn fool idealistic crusade."

Mick snorted. "Think you can keep me from being pissed at you by quoting _Star Wars_?"

"Yes." They both chuckled at that, then Leonard said, "Thank you for everything, old friend." A brief pause, then with a catch in his voice, he said, "I can't call you partner any more. You don't need a partner. And the truth is, you were never just my partner. You were my brother."

Sara's tears spilled over as she watched Mick pull Leonard in for a long hug. He murmured something in Mick's ear, getting a nod and another chuckle. Then Leonard stepped away from Mick, giving him one last light punch in the arm before turning to her.

"Sara," he said softly. "Remember what I told you when we were trapped in the engine room, nearly freezing to death?"

"You said there was nothing like dying to make you think about all your regrets."

He reached out to tenderly brush her tears away. "I didn't realize how true that was. I'm sorry I waited so long. I'm sorry we missed our chance, and that the future won't hold anything more than this for me and you. But if this is all we're ever going to get… do you remember what you wanted to do the first time we came here?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I do," she answered, her voice cracking.

He smiled and stepped back toward the dance floor, hands extended toward her. "Wanna dance, Sara?"

She took a slow stop toward him. "You're not just gonna watch?"

He shook his head. "Not this time. But I think this song might fit better," he said, waving a hand. _Love Will Keep Us Together_ faded out, replaced by _Unchained Melody_. He held his hand out to Sara, and with a trembling smile, she moved into his arms.

It wasn't really dancing. Just swaying together, her right hand clasped in his left, his right hand on her waist and her left hand on his shoulder. As they moved in a slow circle around the floor, he drew their hands in to his chest to rest over his heart.

He bent his head to murmur in her ear, "I am so proud of you, you know. You're a much better captain than Rip ever was. I'm sorry I'm missing out on being part of your crew."

She chuckled and turned her head to meet his eyes. "You probably wouldn't listen to me any better than you listened to him."

He gave her a genuine smile, an expression Sara had never seen on him in life, and she felt her heart break a little more for that. "Maybe not. But it would have been fun."

He pulled her a little closer, and she laid her head against his chest as they moved across the floor, hearing the steady beat of his… _Leo's_ … heart.

"Does Leo know what we're doing here?" she asked.

Leonard gave an affirmative hum. "He does. And…" he pulled back a little to look into Sara's eyes, releasing her hand to cup her face, "he's telling me to stop wasting time."

He bent his head and kissed her, pulling her body more tightly against his own. With a little whimper, Sara wound her arms around his neck, one hand stroking the stubble of his hair at the nape of his neck. His hand slid from her cheek into her hair as he deepened the kiss, and she tried to press even closer, determined to touch and taste, to memorize this feeling because she'd never get it again…

She felt the change before the music faded away. The kiss became softer, his hold less desperate, and when they broke apart she opened her eyes to see Leo's watery smile, his cheek damp with his own tears as he wiped hers away. The gesture was more brotherly than Leonard's had been, but with no less… _love_ … in it.

"I'm so sorry, Sara," he said softly.

Slowly, she realized they were back on the bridge, watched by the rest of the team. She started to pull back, but he shook his head slightly, keeping a loose hold on her.

Perhaps that was just as well. She felt a little unsteady, and willingly took the support and comfort he offered.

"I know he couldn't ever bring himself to really say it, even now," Leo said. "But I could feel everything he was feeling… and he cared for all of you." He chuckled. "Yes, even you, Ray… and if I wasn't going home to another Earth he'd probably haunt me for letting that cat out of the bag."

"Oh, don't think you're getting off the hook that easily, mate. The spirit world doesn't recognize dimensional borders," John said. He looked over at Nate. "You got those drinks for us?"

Nate nodded, motioning at the table in the parlor. They followed him up the shallow steps, and he passed around seven glasses of Scotch, with an eighth glass of plain water for Zari.

"He's not really gone, you know," John said. "No one ever really is."

"All that we love deeply becomes a part of us," Nate said. "Helen Keller."

"Nice quote, and she's one hell of a woman," John said. "But that's not what I meant."

Nate's eyes bugged. "You mean, he's here?" he asked, his eyes darting around the room.

John laughed at him. "Not right now, mate." He leaned in toward Nate and whispered conspiratorially, "But you never know when he'll be around."

"You will if your wallet goes missing," Mick said.

Amaya chuckled. "Nathaniel and I never got to know your Leonard Snart, and we didn't want to after the mess with the Legion, but…" she met Sara's eyes across the table, "I think I'd like to know more now."

Sara nodded, and Ray lifted his glass. "To Leonard Snart," he said. "He didn't want to be my friend, or a hero, but he wound up being both."

"I knew him from a scrawny punk kid in juvie. Never thought he'd wind up saving… everybody. Let alone me," Mick said. He raised his own glass. "I miss you, brother."

Sara took a deep breath. "Even before the Vanishing Point, he was a hero to me," she said, thinking of his voice in her ear in Russia. "He made me better…"

"You made him better too," Leo murmured. "And he loved you for it."

"...and I'll never forget him." She raised her glass. "To Leonard. One hell of a thief."

 _Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea_

 _To the open arms of the sea_

 _Yes, lonely rivers sigh, "Wait for me, wait for me_

 _I'll be coming home, wait for me"_

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** With this out of my system, I'm getting back to my much happier "Coming Home To You."

And Jael and I are tossing around ideas for another fix-it collaboration.


End file.
